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Scottish Labour promises to restore tax credits

This is just the first shot in a long battle – but an important one, because the SNP has already said it cannot reverse the tax credit cuts – or resist Tory social security cuts either.

Scottish Labour is to announce plans to restore tax credits for 350,000 working families in a bid to outflank the Scottish National party over the new tax powers coming to Holyrood.

Kezia Dugdale, the party’s Scottish leader, will tell delegates at the party’s annual conference that she would pay for the new policy, forecast to cost £440m by 2021, by resisting tax cuts being proposed by the SNP and the Tories.

The proposal is designed to pile pressure on John Swinney, the Scottish finance secretary and deputy first minister, after he said his government could not afford to reverse the abolition of tax credits by the UK government or restore all the UK government’s welfare cuts.

Not sure where Kez is getting all this money. She says this will be partly funded by scrapping the SNP plans to reduce APD. Unfortunately, she has already stated that that particular source would be used for education. In the same interview she actually said that she hadn’t a clue how much raising the top rate of tax to 50% would raise, saying up to £100m. The IFS reckons around £8m.

Scottish Labour have consistently said, and have tried to have Motions passed in the Scottish Parliament to confirm, that Education funding would be boosted by the creation of a 50p Tax Rate for highest earners.

The idea of stopping tax credit cuts is pie in the sky. All recent polls suggest that the wider public are in favour despite their opinion that it may be tough on some people and even unfair. I know the activists don’t like it and nor do those in the twittersphere, but they are quite detached from the electorate. That much was obvious during the recent general election.

Let me get this straight: You’re relying on the polls to support your claim that most of the population is happy to be poorer – polls that were completely wrong in the run-up to the last election – and you’re using the election to show that activists and Twitter users are detached from the electorate – activists and Twitter users who relied on the polls.
Have a think about how badly you’re contradicting yourself.

The polls were not that badly wrong. For instance no leader has ever won an election with personal pollng figures as low as Miliband.

It is not a case of most of the population being happy to be poorer as the changes affect a relatively small minority.

Thatcher knew how things operate. In the recent recession, most middle class people were not affected. They may have reduced their spending on a few items at Waitrose etc, but they were largely immune.

Thatcher realised that so long as the majority are in employment and doing pretty well, they will act in self interest. That means electing a party that looks after THEIR interests. As most people are in work and doing pretty well they vote in a party that will give them more of the same. It may not appeal to a sense of fairness or justice but that is the way the electorate behave. On balance they see tax credit reductions as good for the majority.

Social media has little impact on the average voter. Reading social media shows that the people on there have already made their mind up and just egg each other on. The uncommitted voters are not there.

Miliband’s personal figures were higher than Cameron’s when the election took place.
The changes affect three million families. That is a minority – but not a small one. Furthermore, perhaps you don’t understand the economics of this. I did explain them in a previous article but the quick version is that the tax credit cut is a plan to shrink the economy by billions of pounds. Everybody who would have received that money in payment for goods and services will also suffer a loss of income and, because it is taking money from people who need it and would spend it immediately, this means a lot of people are going to be out of pocket. Perhaps you didn’t consider this? Consider it now.
Thatcher may have known how things operate – I would certainly suggest that she knew it better than the current thugs, even though they are only following her plan. Your story falls apart at the point where people realise that cuts to the poor affect them as well. By that time, it may be too late to stop the whole economy from overbalancing again; that is where the Conservative delusion leads you.
The social media are growing and, if concerns about the recent Telegraph article on Portugal are any indication, able to provide more accurate information – quicker – than the mainstream media. This means increasing numbers of people are increasingly better-informed, including more and more of your “uncommitted” voters.
The times, they are a-changing.

I see people saying that if wages were high enough, Tax Credits wouldn’t be needed. I don’t see people saying that they think that cuts to tax credits prior to wage rises and income tax cuts are appropriate. Also you can’t postulate what the electorate thinks about cuts to Tax Credits because it wasn’t in the Tory Manifesto, so people didn’t consider it.

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